The Recycling Nazi

Last night, I noticed an almost empty container of blackberries sitting in the back of a shelf in my fridge. Upon closer inspection, the last of these blackberries was moldy and ready to be disposed of. I threw the fruit in the sink and the container in the trash. About an hour later, the Recycling Nazi struck again. Steve, my husband, had opened the trash can and saw the container, and I heard, “hey, isn’t this recyclable?” Believe me, that isn’t the first time he has asked me that question, and it won’t be the last.

To defend myself, we recycle everything possible. Our recycling allows for cardboard of all kinds, even cereal boxes, paper, aluminum, glass, and plastic that is marked with a 1 or 2. Since, we don’t buy soda or bottled water, most of our recycling is paper. Every piece of mail that is tossed is recycled, even the shredded mail. Every box goes into that bag, including empty pasta, cracker, and other food boxes. Toilet paper and paper towel rolls – all are recycled in our house. Our pile of paper recycling is huge every week. We even recycle the little cardboard tags removed from a new piece of clothing. Imagine all those baby clothes that I have had to remove the plastic string that attaches the tag. I throw out the plastic and recycle the tag. The amount of paper that moves through a house just from daily is remarkable once you start recycling all of it.

It’s the plastic containers marked with a 1 that always gets me in trouble with the Recycling Nazi. The number is hard to read, and for some reason, I don’t assume a strawberry container is recyclable. I swear that he opens the trash can sometimes just to look if I’ve missed something and rejoices when he finds it. At the end of the day, I would rather be married to man who calls out the missed recyclables than one who doesn’t care to recycle anything. Now, if I can only get him to put those empty toilet paper rolls in the recycling bin rather than leaving them on the bathroom sinks….